Shirty Science

 

Pictured: Opening night

Have you ever asked yourself what would happen if you combined art with science? Shirty Science is a project created by ANU student, Madison Hartill-Law, who is studying a Masters in Science Communication. She has worked at making science more accessible by combining ANU PhD students and local artists to create an artistic representation of the scientific projects on t-shirts. Cool!

Madison came up with the concept after seeing too many pun based science shirts. “Scientists should be wearing shirts about their own research,” she said, “I wanted to create something that would spark conversations about new scientific discoveries”.

Last weekend was the unveiling of these impressive shirts at a weekend-long exhibition at Anvil Design Studio & Gallery at The Hamlet.

Imagine wine, artwork and passionate scientists and artists discussing their work, and you’ve got the exhibition release. Each shirt was been given a ‘team’ name, from Team Malaria to Team Eukaryote. My favourite was Team Brain – not only was it a super cool looking shirt but when you learn the science behind it, it is a super clever creation. The scientist, Francesca Maclean, from the College of Engineering and Computer Science, is designing a ‘material system’ that can help the brain repair after traumatic injury. The art created by Mahnie Blakey (a first year studying design with a major in textiles) not only looks awesome, it used Francesca’s actual microscope slides which capture the repair process. These slides were used to create a collage in the shape of a brain.

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Being a female in science it was great to see that the majority of both artists and scientists in the project were female. The project opened so much opportunity to promote areas of science study that are underrepresented. Not only that but this is a great platform to make science understandable and accessible – something which doesn’t often occur in the higher levels in science.

See http://www.shirtyscience.com/ for all the amazing designs!

We acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the Traditional Custodians of the land on which Woroni, Woroni Radio and Woroni TV are created, edited, published, printed and distributed. We pay our respects to Elders past and present and emerging. We acknowledge that the name Woroni was taken from the Wadi Wadi Nation without permission, and we are striving to do better for future reconciliation.